otseng wrote:I'd like to get back to distinguishing between an intelligent cause and a natural cause. First off, if we detect some encoded message, there would not be any other option except for two possible causes - an intelligent cause and a natural cause. Furthermore, I would suggest that we can rightly believe that it is an intelligent cause if we cannot determine any natural means of achieving that encoded message. This of course depends on our current understanding of natural processes. It could possibly have originated from natural causes, but because of our lack of understanding of natural processes, we might not be able to determine those natural causes. If this is the case, how can we be sure that it was from an intelligent cause?
You make an excellent point, which, I think, gets at the heart of the ID movement. I'll paraphrase:
- it's reasonable to infer an intelligent cause if we can't think of a natural cause...
- ...depending on how much we understand of the natural world...
- ...with the recognition that the inference of intelligence is tentative until we know for sure.
The ID movement stops at statement 1.
The mental gymnastics of the ID folks, in terms of "irreducible complexity" and "complex specified information" are attempts to answer your question. They fail because they don't take into account what we actually do know about natural causes, and thus build their logic on an incorrect foundation. Still, it's an actual attempt to find an answer.
My personal opinion is that we
can't ever be sure that a coded message is from an intelligent cause, because we can't ever be sure that we understand all of nature. Where ID fails here is that it excludes the possibility that we might be able to study nature some more, and maybe figure it out.
We tend to get into arguments when some scientists say that we must rule out intelligent causes, no matter what. After all, the logic goes, the function of science is to determine how much of the world can be explained by natural causes. Therefore, un-natural causes (i.e. intelligent causes) are not part of science. Well...that's fine; it's working from the definition, which is clear enough. The problem comes from the fact that the natural explanation is often at odds with the religious explanation...
...which is where your statement is extremely useful. Religious explanations (by which, in this context, we mean the explanations of all religions except our own) have grown out of people's attempts to answer your question. "Here is something we can't explain...Is it natural? Is it a result of actions of the gods? We know of no natural causes, so we'll say it's the gods." Every story of origins incorporates creatures and features of the world in which the people live. In Africa, there may be elephants or ants. In North America, there may be ravens or coyotes. In the western Mediterranean, there may be deserts that people wander around in. Stories may seem fantastical, or they may seem more like common life, but whatever the ancient history,
it's not like that now. The gods have gone away, or there are covenants not to do cataclysmic things again, or whatever.
That is: the religious explanations are rather old answers to your question, following your logic that intelligent causes are reasonable in the absence of other explanations.
As scientific investigation of the natural world has progressed, we can see most of these stories (usually, all but our own) as pre-scientific explanations--step 1 above. In my opinion, the best religions are the ones that have been able to adapt to the increase of scientific understanding, and accept their origin stories as important wisdom handed down from generation to generation
as stories. The Great Holy Book is itself coded information, and the Intelligence who gave us whose words knows all about the natural world, having made it. He cannot have given us stories that prove the natural world is wrong. We just have to figure out the code he used in the stories. Some religions have; others have chosen not to.
The above discussion pertains to "coded messages" such as DNA or--even using the same jargon--messenger RNA, commonly called "message." ID would have us believe these indicate intelligence, when no such conclusion is warranted.
With respect to messages from outer space, I agree with Ian Parker:
pi or
e would convince me that whoever sent the message knew how to calculate these numbers. I say this, of course, with otseng's caveat: there may be ways that natural systems can generate messages with this information in them, and I just don't know what they are. But what the hey--until I learn otherwise, I'll accept the explanation that there's intelligence out there. I might wonder if it's all that smart an intelligence, if it's trying to contact us, but that's another discussion.
Binary is the natural communications language of the universe but if I simply threshold the output of a RF detector so it gives me ones and zeros I will see whole sequences of numbers like your examples above (when tuned between radio stations so there it's only receiving 'static'). There needs to be a pattern in the data. This might be something we recognize (like PI) or there are statistical analyses that can reveal other patterns. Submarines are always on the lookout for 'tonals' - the sort of 'ring' you get when you twang a wine-glass. This sort of signal will stand out in a noisy background and can indicate the presence of intelligence nearby. A typical source of such a tonal is when someone drops a saucepan on the galley floor. Of course nature produces her own tonals, there are many species of marine life that do this and in space there are certain types of star and quasi-stellar objects that create repeating patterns. So its not easy ascribing intelligence to a signal.
